[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Seeing Destination in More Detail

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:16:13 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201006291816.o5TIGEkL027690_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-217

NASA Mars Rover Seeing Destination in More Detail
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 29, 2010

Mars rover team members have begun informally naming features around the
rim of Endeavour Crater, as they develop plans to investigate that
destination when NASA's Opportunity rover arrives there after many more
months of driving.

A new, super-resolution view of a portion of Endeavour's rim reveals
details that were not discernible in earlier images from the rover.
Several high points along the rim can be correlated with points
discernible from orbit.

Super-resolution is an imaging technique combining information from
multiple pictures of the same target to generate an image with a higher
resolution than any of the individual images.

Endeavour has been the team's long-term destination for Opportunity
since the summer of 2008, when the rover finished two years of studying
Victoria Crater. By the spring of 2010, Opportunity had covered more
than a third of the charted, 19-kilometer (12-mile) route from Victoria
to Endeavour and reached an area with a gradual, southward slope
offering a view of Endeavour's elevated rim.

After the rover team chose Endeavour as a long-term destination, the
goal became even more alluring when observations with the Compact
Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, on NASA's Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter, found clay minerals exposed at Endeavour. Clay
minerals, which form under wet conditions, have been found extensively
on Mars from orbit, but have not been examined on the surface.
Additional observations with that spectrometer are helping the rover
team choose which part of Endeavour's rim to visit first with Opportunity.

The team is using the theme of names of places visited by British Royal
Navy Capt. James Cook in his 1769-1771 Pacific voyage in command of
H.M.S. Endeavour for informal names of sites at Endeavour Crater. Points
visible in the super-resolution view from May 12 include "Cape
Tribulation" and "Cape Dromedary."

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-217
Received on Tue 29 Jun 2010 02:16:13 PM PDT